LETTER FROM BOSTON: THERE WAS a time, back in the 1950s, when Harry Truman was in the White House and communists were everywhere, that Anthony "Tony" Flaherty and John "Wacko" Hurley were the best of friends, writes KEVIN CULLEN
They served in the navy together, in Norfolk, the port in Virginia.
They never made it to Korea, but they had some good times. When they got back to their native South Boston, the heart of Boston's Irish Diaspora, they drank together at the Chiefs, a drinking club for old sailors.
When Flaherty got married at St Augustine's Church in Southie, Hurley stood at the altar with him, his best man. When Flaherty's first child, Paul, was born, Hurley was godfather.
But something happened. Wacko Hurley went back to civilian life and Tony Flaherty, a career navy man, went off to war, this time in Vietnam, and he came back a changed man. One day, he was walking down a dirt road, as a group of Vietnamese kids straggled by, fleeing a village destroyed by American fire.
"One of the kids, a boy, had lost a leg," Flaherty recalled, sitting in his apartment on East Broadway. "I had an epiphany that day."
Flaherty had been a military man his entire adult life. There was honour and nobility in a soldier's life. His father, Galway-born, had been forced to leave the family at the age of 38, drafted, to fight the Japanese in the second World War. But, that day in 1968, on that dirt road in Vietnam, Tony Flaherty became suddenly, implacably opposed to war. Not long after, they airlifted him out of Nam. He left the Navy with the rank of lieutenant and something called post-traumatic stress disorder. "I went cuckoo," he said.
Flaherty came back to Southie to pick up the pieces. But too often he picked up a bottle. Eventually, he got sober and with a clear head became even more opposed to war, more convinced of its folly, furious that the sons and daughters of the rich and the powerful mostly stayed home while others fought the wars started by the rich and the powerful. He worked for a programme that got veterans housing and help for substance abuse.
He joined a national organisation called Veterans for Peace. Five years ago, as US forces prepared to invade Iraq, Flaherty and his friends asked to march in the St Patrick's Day parade in Southie. He found himself seeking the permission of his old pal Wacko Hurley, the long-time parade organiser.
Wacko told them to get lost.
"He called us commies," Flaherty said.
But as Flaherty and his comrades massed in protest, a sympathetic police commander let them follow the end of the parade, a ragtag army of veterans opposed to the war. Some people cheered them. Others threw beer cans and epithets.
After a long hiatus, and mindful of the approaching fifth anniversary of US president George Bush's disastrous decision to invade Iraq, Flaherty and his friends again asked for permission to march in this year's parade. Wacko Hurley was furious when he found out they had applied again. He said subterfuge was involved. "Some do-gooders gave them an application," Wacko said.
A few weeks ago, Wacko walked into a community meeting and handed Flaherty a one-sentence letter saying their application had been denied. There was no reason given.
Hurley told me the reason was obvious.
"This year's parade is dedicated to supporting the troops in Iraq," Hurley said. Having Flaherty's crew in the parade, Wacko maintains, would be provocative and disrespectful.
"That's baloney," Flaherty said. "These guys can't tolerate dissent. This isn't about supporting the troops. This is about glorifying war. A lot of the guys who do the most talking, they didn't see much action. They say they support the troops. We support the troops, too. We want to bring them home, and help them when they come home."
Wacko Hurley is known in Southie as Wacko-9-0 because the US supreme court voted unanimously to back his refusal to let gay activists march in the St Patrick's Day parade. The nation's highest court agreed with Wacko that the parade was a private affair, and that organisers could bar anyone they wanted. The blanket prohibition on gays now extends to combat veterans who oppose the war in Iraq.
There is a blue bumper sticker on Tony Flaherty's door. There can't be many of them in Southie. It says "OUT OF IRAQ NOW". His neighbour's door is festooned with cardboard leprechauns.
Flaherty's livingroom wall is lined with navy memorabilia. There is a commendation for valour he received in Vietnam.
"It meant something once," he said, almost to himself, touching the frame.
Flaherty's second-floor window offers a commanding view of the parade route. But he won't be watching. "Peace is a dirty word," Flaherty said, looking out the window. "This has split the country right down the middle. It's brother against brother."
Wacko Hurley said he still says hello to Flaherty. "He was my friend," Hurley said. "He still is." But it's different now. Hurley calls him Anthony. And Flaherty calls him John.
Wacko and Tony are no more. Two more casualties of war, a war that stretches from Baghdad all the way down Broadway in Southie.
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Kevin Cullen is a journalist with the Boston Globe